


The Beautiful Side of Somewhere

by karrenia_rune



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Community: where no woman has gone before, Episode Tag, Women Being Awesome, downtime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-27
Updated: 2010-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:04:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at the first steps toward the eventual friendship between the troubled Ro Laren and Guinan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beautiful Side of Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thistlerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/gifts).



Disclaimer: ST: The Next Generation and the characters who appear here or are mentioned belong to Paramount, UPN etc; they are not mine.  
The story references events shown in the episode where most of the crew were de-aged from a transporter accident and the title was inspired by the Wallflowers song.

"The Beautiful Side of Somewhere"

While her true age would always remain a thing of mystery to the crew and everyone else, for that matter, Guinan could still recall what it was like to be young. And while it hardly took a transporter accident to bring back those memories, she did have to admit that it helped.

On the heels of that thought she decided that now would be an ideal time to reach out to the trouble young Bajoran woman; the first ever to serve in Star Fleet, Guinan wondered if somewhere in some time she had found a kindred spirit.

Ro was troubled, there was no doubt about that. It was there in her every move, every gesture and in the overly precise manner in which she performed her duties or interacted with the crew. The fact that her service record was there for anyone who cared to look it up in the Federation database did not much matter to Guinan at this point. She was not Star Fleet, which meant she did not have to go by the book.

In the back of her mind Guinan thought: 'Were would the fun be in that?'

In the aftermath of the accident most of the crew had been evacuated, and while the ever-opportunistic Ferengi saw the situation as a chance to seize whatever profit that they could; Guinan had an entirely different outlook on it.

The Ferengi strutted around the ship like they owned it, and because those who remained aboard appeared to be children, flummoxed but by no means deflated in either threats or bluster, had simply herded all of the children into separate labs and classrooms.

Guinan stood up and strode over to a nearby terminal, ordering the computer to print out a hard cop of the picture of something cute and furry along with a box of coloring crayons.

"What do you want?" demanded Ro in a surly tone of where she crouched on the floor her hair falling down low over her eyes. While Guinan knew that Ro was a strong, fiercely independent woman she also thought that Ro seemed to be trying to hide behind that hair. "I want you to color with me."

"What?" exclaimed Ro, momentarily distracted out of her meandering thoughts. There had been more than a few times in recent years that had spent much to her childhood on one of Bajor's colony worlds and then of the Cardassian Occupation of the main planet.

It had been a long, difficult, thorny path that she had walked both as a Bajoran and by choosing a career in Star Fleet, but she had believed that it had been worth it. Now, due to so kind of electro-magnetic anomaly, the Enterprise's transporter system and she and several members of the crew had been de-aged.

It made for both an interesting and disorienting way to feel and for the first time in her life Ro Laren did not know exactly how to handle the situation, or to how to reconcile the churning emotions that were roiling just beneath the surface of her skin.

Guinan, the hostess of Ten Forward, also-de-aged and looking as if she was swimming in the plum-colored robes, stood in front of her  
offering her a sheaf of papers with some furry-looking animal printed on it and box of colored drawing sticks in the other.

"Think of it as an exercise in distractions, in lulling our captors into a false sense of security," the older woman replied.

"You're crazy. Do you know that?" Ro muttered and turned her face away but something in the other woman's eyes or the utter insanity of of their current predicament caught her up and broke the stony reserve and she turned back to face her once more.

"Damn it! Okay, give me the purple drawing stick."

"You do realize that you don't have to stay within the lines," replied Guinan as she did as she was asked.

Ro began to draw looping swirls in a desultory sort of fashion when she wondered that given Guinan's rather mysterious reputation if there might have been more to that statement than was obvious on the surface.

In the back of her mind Ro thought, 'I really don't care much one way or the other at this point.'

"Ro, you do know that if there''s ever anything you want to talk about," said Guinan suddenly, "I am a very good listener. In fact, it's one of my many and varied skills."

"I said I would draw with you, I never said I would tell you all of the things in my head," snapped Ro and then flushed with both mingled anger and chagrin. "I'm sorry. I didn't meant that in the way it sounded. I just don't know what the hell to do right now and it's eating me up inside!"

Guinan nodded. "It might help to let me sort some of that out for you. And there are better ways of doing that than your banging your head into the bulkheads, or is this your first time?"

"Now you're beginning to sound like Counselor Troi," muttered Ro.

"With all due respect to the Counselor," remarked Guinan with some edge now coloring her own voice, "I am only speaking from my own experience, not to mention my own observations of, shall we say, your recent behavior."

"What do you want me to say?" yelled Ro back, only partially aware that her outburst and their conversation was being apprehensively watched by the frightened children crowded into the classroom.

Ro reached shrugged and then reached up to brush away a lock of auburn hair that had fallen down over her eyes and replied in\ a quieter tone. "I don't know what to say."

"I guess, whatever you want, but as you stated earlier," Guinan trailed off and then added: "Whatever's causing you so much distress, it might help to lance the wound and let it heal rather than let it fester." Guinan smiled and reached out a hand.  
"Enough of coloring. We need a plan and I believe that Mr. Crusher is back, and we might very well have the workings of one."

Wesley Crusher, unaware of what had occurred in his absence, nodded and then began to detail the outlines of his plan to foil the Ferengis at their own game.

Ro and Guinan exchanged a meaningful but wordless glance, both aware that while the matter of their discussion was not finished by any means it might very well lead into a kind of understanding.

Where that understanding would take them in the future was anyone's guess but a beginning nonetheless. Ro, much to her own surprise, found that she did mind that in the least. While, she would not at this precise moment count the mysterious and unpredictable woman among her friends she was starting to warm up to her.

Ro smiled and turned and said to no one in particular she said: "Let's do this!"

"My sentiments exactly," replied Guinan with an equally wide grin plastered on her own face.


End file.
